


Camisado

by dannylove



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Drug Addiction, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Teen Angst, Teenlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-20 22:40:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6028030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dannylove/pseuds/dannylove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is messed up and on a fast track to juvenile detention if he can't turn his life around.</p><p>Sherlock, is a hedonistic drug addict who can barely remember a life outside the unit. </p><p>When John arrived at Montague House he never expected this.......</p>
            </blockquote>





	Camisado

"John, I can't help if you won't talk to me."

He levelled his gaze at the woman in the chair across from him, shrugged to show his indifference, and turned his head in favour of looking out the window instead in a very deliberate gesture of defiance. He neither wanted or needed her so-called help.

He took in the scene outside, anything rather than continue to stare at her notebook where it sat upside down and spread open on the desktop. Not that that mattered. He already knew what it said, having been written before he'd even sat down.

_Trust issues. Lacks impulse control_

A wry smile twisted up the corners of his mouth. 

Well, she wasn't exactly wrong.

It was raining again, in fat, swift drops that chased each other down the grimy pane. Peering out at the bleak autumn landscape, John picked out the blurred shapes of other students in endless shades of grey as they hurried to escape the sudden deluge, trying not to think about anything at all. Not that it worked. Every time he tried to zone out, every night when he closed his eyes and tried to sleep it was there, the scent of blood, his own knuckles bruised down to the bone and his father, on his back, out cold in a darkening pool of his own piss and a broken half-bottle of whiskey. Just your average Friday evening in the Watson house.

Except this time it had gone too far and had a much, much darker ending. Everyone had been drunk that night. Harry had come home for her twenty-first and the house had been heaving with people, most of whom John only vaguely knew. People from down the street, blokes he recognized from the local pub or the bookies office on the numerous occasions he's had to go down there and forcibly pull his dad out on the orders of his mum. Some other, more dubious substances may have been involved at too point, but the little that John remembers of that evening had been lost or blanked from his memory. Which hadn't exactly worked to his advantage during the ensuing court case. That had been the last straw of course. In the absence of another likely suspect, John had been charged for the assault, and when you're found bending over the unconscious body of your father, with blood on your face and bruised knuckles after the neighbours, sick of the noise, had placed a call to the police- well, the case had seemed cut and dried and the vicious old bastard had pressed charges. Twelve months probation and a spell in Montague House. 

"You know aggressive behaviour is totally unacceptable John, and I understand things are difficult for you right now, but we're here to help you, honestly, in any way we can. You really can't continue on this path. You do understand that, don't you?"

John sighed and pointedly ignored the question, although he didn't suppose an answer was expected. He shifted in his seat and leaned forward instead. "Time's up. Are we done?" he said quietly.

Ella, the pastoral care officer, closed her notebook with a snap. "I'm afraid not John, not today. Mr Taylor has a proposal for you. He thinks you would thrive given a little more responsibility, and I'm inclined to agree with him. And that is why, as of today, you've been enrolled as a mentor on our student liaison programme."

"No," John said, with an emphatic shake of the head.

"It's mandatory on you remaining here at Montague House John," Ella continued patiently, "otherwise, you're in breach of the probation order."

John felt his anger flare at that. "And so what? You get a fuck-up to baby-sit another fuck-up. Sounds like a bloody great plan, excellent," John sneered. "I don't care about some stupid court order, the answers still no. I'd rather leave and take my chances, ta very much."

"Would you really though John?" Ella sighed, "You're seventeen and so fall one year outside the remit for local authority care."

John rolled his eyes, feigning boredom and folded his arms across his chest.

"I don't think you quite understand the implications John. You'd be on your own. Completely. Do you think you're ready for that?" she raised a brow and sat back, waiting patiently for his answer.

An answer he resolutely refused to give. Surviving on his own was what he did, couldn't she see that? He'd always had to look out for himself, even more so after his sister had moved out three years ago to live with her girlfriend. But he had to admit, if only to himself, that although he hated it here, with all the endless, pointless rules, the scratchy grey wool trousers and the awful nylon tie that made him feel like he was choking, he felt safe for the very first time in his life, which was so much more than he deserved - truly ironic given the fucked-up level of crazy of some of the unit's other inhabitants.

"I'm sure you'd find it worthwhile," Ella continued, unperturbed, "whatever you may think about yourself, you are a very capable young man, more of a leader than a follower perhaps, which could be of great benefit to a few of our more challenging residents."

"Isn't that your job?" John answered, not even trying to conceal the sarcasm now.

Ella ignored this new outburst and continued, shuffling through the papers on her desk to find a file. "I already have someone in mind for you. He's one of our more long-term students - perhaps you would like to meet him?"

"Students? Don't you mean inmates?"

"Now John, that's a little unfair."

"Is it? It's not as if I can just walk out the door. You've made that quite clear."

Ella sighed, and did that annoying thing John hated where she looked over the top of her glasses at him. "Mr Taylor expects you in the library at six John. You can go now."

John made sure he scraped the chair extra hard across the floor when he stood and found some satisfaction when Ella winced at the resultant squeak. It was childish, he knew that, but he still couldn't deal with being told what to do. And they expected him to mentor someone else?

Christ, knowing his luck he'd get that lunatic with the eyes and the hair, the one who'd started a minor blaze in the therapeutic art class by setting a match to a cloth soaked in turpentine. What was his name again? Something really fucking pretentious and posh.

John wracked his brain - wasn't it something like.... Proudlock?

****

Sherlock sat hunched against the cold autumn rain. He was perched on the flat top roof of the gymnasium, having climbed up there after morning break to smoke in peace and think. To venture back down was not an option to be relished. He would deal with the damp seeping through his inadequate layers of clothing, and the way his skin had turned a rather interesting shade of mottled blue rather than nip back to his room to grab a coat; he'd rather freeze.

He rubbed his thumb absently over the bruise on the back of his hand, the latest reminder of his weakness and failure. The nurse had been young, inexperienced, and Sherlock had been savage and relentless in his dissection and suitably flustered, she’d pulled the cannula out too fast and the resultant spray of blood across the bed and over the front of her uniform was really quite spectacular, reminiscent of an early Jackson Pollock, he'd thought.

Quite how, or why he’d ended up in there Sherlock still had no idea. Well, of course he did to a certain degree, _apparently_ he’d managed to overdose again, which was patently ridiculous, given how carefully he’d calculated the dosage. Just enough to keep him on the right side of pleasantly high, enough to switch off and take himself out of his own head for an hour or two, with minimal risk of withdrawl and all the ensuing _inconveniences_ it entailed. The more unpleasant symptoms (vomiting, cramps, tremors, the crawls), would be much too difficult to hide given the incestuous nature of a boarding school environment with everyone living on top of one another. There were only so many times one could feign stomach-flu without arousing suspicion.

So Sherlock had been careful, he was _always_ so bloody careful, and therefore, this was irritating in the extreme, he thought, dragging deep on his cigarette and relishing the sweet burn in his lungs before exhaling.  How could an entire pocket of time of around six hours simply vanish from his consciousness, gone, just like that, as if he’d been anaesthetised? As if no time at all had passed from the moment the needle pierced his skin?

That he’d made a mistake was unfathomable. Sherlock didn’t make mistakes. Not potentially fatal ones like this had almost been. His parents however, would beg to differ, and they were down there somewhere, at this very moment, discussing his future with Mr Taylor the senior House Master, trying to reach an agreement as to whether or not Montague House could continue to provide an environment conducive to Sherlock’s recovery. As if he was defective, as if there was something _wrong_ with him that needed _fixing_.

Sherlock considered the grain of truth in this assessment, and decided he probably was quite cracked after all, fatally flawed at the least like all good anti-heroes, or diabolical criminal masterminds tended to be. It would make life much easier if only he knew which side of the line he would eventually find himself on. Things clearly had potential to go either way at this point in time, with Mycroft, brother and arch-nemesis both, sitting somewhere in the middle of the continuum, possibly even veering toward the dark side.

Sherlock decided on balance that his parents would opt to keep him here if at all possible, if it meant he'd remain someone else’s problem and they didn't have the constant worry of where he was, who he was with and what, or rather who, he was doing. The location put sufficient distance between him and London, and all the other various unsavoury temptations they felt had led him down this self-destructive path. Entirely their evaluation; on balance Sherlock was rather enjoying himself. Despite the best efforts of the staff in here, his drug of choice was fairly easy to come by and so was sex if the urge should strike. And now providence had provided him with his very own personal puzzle to solve - why on earth would he wish to leave?

The door to the roof popped open behind him, and owing to the fact he had his back pressed up against it, Sherlock tumbled backwards through the gap.

"I should have stepped aside and let you fall," a voice drawled.

The nefarious sibling, but of course.

"Then why didn't you? Why are you here Mycroft? Shouldn't you be scaring minor dignitaries half to death?"

"I have it penciled in for next Tuesday actually."

Sherlock sat up and reached out to retrieve his cigarette, but Mycroft got there first and ground it out underneath his heel. "Do come inside Sherlock, you were only discharged two days ago, or would you like to add pneumonia to your substantial list of problems." 

"I don't have a list."

"You _always_ have a list."

Sherlock shrugged. He didn't care what Mycroft thought. "Have you come to take me home then?"

"Good god no!" Mycroft said, making clear how ridiculous that suggestion was to him. "Mr Taylor, who in my opinion is hopelessly deluded, wishes you remain. He has _ideas."_

 _"_ Oh God, not _group therapy,_ " Sherlock gave an exaggerated shudder. He been forced to attend when he first arrived at Montague. In the first half an hour he'd reduced the team leader to tears by announcing that her husband was having an affair with the nanny, and also deduced who was filching meds from the pharmacy wing in exchange for sexual favours. Surely it should have taught them that the very worst thing they could do to him in here would be enforced interaction with other people.

"Yes...not one of life's forward thinkers, our Mr Taylor, clearly. Couldn't you just..."

"What?"

"I don't know. Perhaps pretend?"

"Pretend to be, what, _norma_ l? Sociopathic tendencies Mycroft, remember?"

"And that is purely a self-diagnosis. Think of it as a game then Sherlock. A study in the psychology of human interaction, or some such. It promises to be a distraction at the very least."

"Fine, but only if I get to choose the victim."

Mycroft smirked. "I'll give it a week before the poor boy begs for mercy."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
